Ministry of Defence: Disclosure of Information
(asked on 5th December 2017) - View Source
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 4 December 2017 to Question 116529, on Ministry of Defence: Disclosure of information, how many reports were compiled in the period 2014 to 2016; and what (a) the dates of completion, (b) the dates of publication and (c) the notification periods were that were given to the affected families for each of those reports.
The Ministry of Defence takes great care to respect the wishes of bereaved families. In accordance with Joint Service Publication 832 ‘Guide to Service Inquiries’, Service Inquiries (SIs) are redacted prior to publication, including the removal of any bereaved family members names. Redactions are carried out in strict accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act.
The Department will always give a minimum of seven days’ notice to Next-of-Kin prior to the publication of an SI. In many cases, the notification period is significantly longer. The requested information on the six SIs which were published in the period 2014 to 2016 which involved at least one fatality is given below.
Date of SI Completion | Date of SI Publication on Gov.uk | Notification of publication to Affected Families |
15 May 2013 | 6 February 2014 | Minimum of 7 days |
7 November 2013 | 30 June 2014 | March 2014 |
11 March 2015 | 14 July 2015 | 29 April 2015 |
3 February 2016 | 17 March 2016 | 5 February 2016 |
4 March 2016 | 17 August 2016 | 1 April 2016 |
15 September 2016 | 15 December 2016 | 26 October 2016 |